Thursday, October 18, 2018

Top Five Mistakes Impacting Customer Experience Efforts

Many organizations think that creating easier to use and prettier user interfaces across many channels will suffice for a better customer experience. Others believe that having more data to leverage and an inside out experience driven by a Customer Relation Management (CRM) system that is filled with rigid transactions will do it. While these are helpful, they don't seem to be having much an effect as needed to make a dent into this problem. Why are customers still so dissatisfied? What's needed is efforts that take "outside-in" view with better customers journeys that leverage design thinking to deliver great experiences linked to better processes.

Ignoring the Impact of a Bad Experience

The numbers are scary. 80 percent of organizations think they provide superior service, but only 8% of their customers think that they are getting superior service. It's worse than that in that most customers do not like their service at almost all the organizations they deal with in an ongoing fashion. It gets exasperated by surveys that are designed to bury the issue and reward managers despite the poor results in the customers eyes. 86 of customers that leave organizations leave because of poor customer service. What's worse is that 95% of those customers tell others of their bad experience and won't even tell the organization they leave. They will tell between 10 and 15 others about their bad experience though. This is not a pretty picture, but it is real.

Not Understanding the Upside of a Great Experience

86% of customers say they would pay more for a superior experience, This translates to around a 10% increase in revenue and 20% reduction in ongoing operating costs. The real benefits come form looking at the economics of the cost of gaining a customer as it is six times as expensive as taking care of your customers. The cost of getting a customer back after they leave is probably a much more shocking number. Investing in a new business model that is based on a great experience might just open up some bigger numbers.

Thinking that Just Drawing Journeys Delivers
Many organizations go through creating customer journeys either that reflect their existing journeys that represent common paths of service, but not necessarily "happy paths" Others create a target journey that ends up being a highly marketed target. The best efforts consider both and design a migration path from the current to the target usually in an incremental fashion. The best organizations tie these journeys to their processes in new and inventive ways.

Not Considering the Organization and the Employees Supporting the Journey

If organizations consider only the customers view point without looking at the skill silos in organizations and the employees that support the customer journeys, there will be only short term improvements. This will be at the expense of the end to end customer journey, driven by the customers compound goals. Since happy employees can make a significant difference, their journeys should be considered too in the context of the customers journey.

Thinking that Customer Improvements are One and Done

The is a common belief that customer experience efforts tend to happen in a big bang fashion and its time the move onto other efforts. Even if there is a slow roll out of a new experience, you are never done. The customer experience is a living, breathing and changing asset that needs constant attention. New channels and new technologies are one thing, but how customer expectations are morphing over time also need to be considered.

Net; Net

Organizations will be competing on customer experience over time, so avoiding common pitfalls is crucial. Keeping customers happy over time is much better than losing them to a new business model not anticipated. Your competitors are looking for every advantage to steal your customers by leveraging better products and services, but the customer experience is their next target.